When I think back to the last time I went to the theatre to see a musical, colour is the first thing that comes to mind. You walk into an impressive room, squint against the stage lights, then take in the set. You awkwardly manoeuvre sideways past the people in your row (who are all most likely very overdressed to be sitting in a dark room for two and a half hours). You hear the frenzied chatter from all sides, a wonderful wave of sound assaulting your senses, getting your nerves well and truly hyped up for the show. The lights go up.
“36 Questions is a certified sensory feast for the ears.”
A typical theatre going experience contains certain elements that pull an audience in. Immersive lighting, an elaborate and creative set design, as well as makeup and costuming. Then there’s the chemistry choreographed carefully between two or more actors on a stage, arguably the most important element of a good show. It’s how the actors brush skin, stiffly turn away from each other, and throw their heads back laughing that fully convinces an audience’s subconsciousness that; yes, I believe them, and I’m invested. So, with all that said, what happens when an audience is denied these elements?
This is what Erin Winter and Chris Littler answer in their podcast musical ‘36 Questions’, produced by Two Up. On July 10th 2017 Winter and Littler released the first of three acts, into the void of the internet. An innovative musical theatre experience that you could listen to any-time anywhere, free of charge. What’s better is that it’s an achingly heartfelt, genuinely funny, and wonderfully crafted show!
Jace Connolly (Jonathan Groff) has been married to Natalie Cooke (Jessie Shelton) for two years, and they have been sickeningly happily living in their whirlwind romance ever since. That is until Natalie is exposed for faking her name, her passports and her entire history. The show opens as Natalie, now Judith Forde, takes back her old name and begins her mission to win “runaway husband” Jace back through any means necessary. Her primary “mean” being ambushing him in his childhood home with a printed-out list of ‘The 36 Questions that Lead to Love’, an exercise they fell in love doing on their first date two years earlier. A great elevator pitch for a musical, but the execution is decidedly complicated by its audio format.
The first tool Winter and Littler created to compensate for the show’s lack of visuals is ‘The Record’. The show opens with a “montage” type scene where Judith uses the voice-memo app on her phone to set reminders, to prove points, and to capture moments she doesn’t want to forget. ‘The Record’ becomes a really helpful medium for exposition as the show goes on.
It allows Judith and Jace to monologue to the listener in a way that makes sense for the world of the show, and for the audience. Act one’s climatic song ‘For the Record’, captures the necessity and effectiveness of this tool. In this song, Judith has gone upstairs to change and Jace is left alone with her phone, ‘The Record’ is rolling. Now alone, Jace admits that he knows it’s not in his best interests to entertain Judith’s quite unhinged method of remedying two years of lies, but also reveals that he can’t not give her another chance, “for the record this is self-destructive, for the record I’m aware of that”.
‘The Record’ also helps visualisation independent of the musical aspect of the show, Judith often tells the listener Jace’s reactions to things she says and does. This reads as comedic and quite in character for her as someone who admits herself that she “rarely think(s) about what I say until I’ve already said it”, but it’s also extremely helpful for an audience, “For the record Jace is staring at the match looking incredulous”. ‘The Record’ also constructs a lot of depth to be discovered within the characters, what they won’t say to each other, they’ll reveal to ‘The Record’.
36 Questions is a certified sensory feast for the ears. For a show with zero visuals, the soundscape of the piece is hugely important for a listener to imagine setting and mood. Joel Rabbe, sound designer of 36 Questions, deserves endless credit and praise for the effortless transitions between dialogue and song throughout the show. Just as ‘The Record’ provides a listener with an entry into Jace and Judith’s inner monologues, the sound design facilitates the musical aspect of the show and allows it to feel like a natural enhancer of the plot, instead of an odd, out of place addition to an otherwise great play.
Songs are incorporated into the setting of the piece, like in Act one when the record player skipping leads into Jace’s frantic song ‘One Thing’, or in Act two when the indicator’s rhythmic clicking gradually turns into Judith’s ‘Our Word’, which reveals her turbulent and traumatic upbringing. This tool reprises in Act three as well, with the song ‘Attachment’. Here, Jace is composing an email to Judith and the song is filled with keyboard taps and a robotic, Siri-esque voice echoing his own.
“The show trusts the listener to interpret Jace and Judith and their world as they see fit and aids their interpretation with the tools above.”
36 Questions: A Podcast Musical “reads” like a really good book, and that’s a large part of what makes it such a success. The show trusts the listener to interpret Jace and Judith and their world as they see fit and aids their interpretation with the tools above. More than that, like a well-constructed novel, the sharp and witty script strongly supports the complex and well-rounded narrative it’s spinning. Theme, character, plot, and script; Picture arrows connecting these four factors of an effective theatrical narrative to each other in a super satisfying circle, and you get 36 Questions.
The result of Jace and Judith’s relationship breakdown at the beginning of the show is the emergence of the dominant theme of the musical, ‘Truth’ and ‘Reality’. Throughout the show, as the characters ask each other all 36 questions, their answers reveal to the listener that they fundamentally disagree on what “the truth is”. Jace says to Judith “I don’t have 36 questions, I just have one question: why did you do it?” to which Judith replies, “and that question has a thousand answers…why? That’s my life”. What Jace views as Judith “bending the rules” to make herself “look better” as something in-concrete and unreliable in his song ‘Reality’, Judith maintains that her life started when she met him, so if lying lets her have him, then she doesn’t view it as being wrong.
“There’s a newfound intimacy uncovered in storytelling when you feel like the characters exist only in your head, the way you decide to imagine them.”
The plot device of the list of the 36 questions they ask each other allows the show to reprise this theme of Truth and Reality again and again and shows the ways the characters’ minds diverge. The musical climaxes with its final song, a duet aptly titled ‘The Truth’. Here we finally see Jace and Judith have arrived on the same page at last, “The truth is all about you, and your honest point of view. And what’s true for you doesn’t have to be true forever and sometimes the truth isn’t always, for the better. It’s something that we aspire to, or maybe that’s something we say until it gets in the way”.
36 Questions manipulates the form of theatre and expands what it can look like and the ways it can reach you. There’s a newfound intimacy uncovered in storytelling when you feel like the characters exist only in your head, the way you decide to imagine them. Throw on your headphones and have a listen. There’s about two hours of immersive content with a beautifully crafted story to help distract from your lack of a love life. You’re very welcome for the recommendation.
WORDS: Laura O’Callaghan
